First, I want to say that I'm SO glad that I found this site. It's wonderful. And although I'm more photographer than retoucher. I still want to acheive perfection and have high standards for myself.

I think I did a good job for this image and have certainly come along away in the past few years, but I do know that I can still get much better and am now primarily interested in learning high-end retouching techinques incorporated by retouching houses that work in fashion and beauty.

all comments welcome.

http://www.fotopatracka.cz/include/showpict.php?src=../users/lumierephoto_5485/P1157573723.jpg

Well I can't really comment on fashion/glamour photography, but this looks pretty good. Her skin is a good color and looks clear. But I'm a bit distracted by the overexposure in the top left. Moreso with the lens flare. It doesn't seem to add anything to the picture and it's so light, it's barely there. You should either get rid of it completely or make it more pronounced. I have a rule: Never have anything in the picture that looks like it got there accidentally.

seeing the original would help with the critique

It looks unpleasantly plastic to me.

There is something in her eyes too.

hi lumierephoto and welcome to RP.

the fashion/glamor industry is one of exacting detail and high quality. and when you're talking detail, one of the areas of most concern is skin. natural skin has 'texture', the impression of being 3 dimensional with highs and lows and roughness and so on. skin, to the casual viewer, seems smooth. but, in fact it's not. skin has pores, pits, highs, lows and so on that make it what it is. when you erase these or paint over them or clone them out, the skin no longer looks realistic and believable. think of a model that wears too much makeup. it covers all this texture with foundation or pancake (or whatever) and you lose all the skin detail and it just looks like too much makeup. the trick with makeup is to make it look natural while also giving the illusion of something incredible or enhancing. the same trick exists in retouching. too much smoothing, smudging, cloning, etc. and the image no longer looks natural.

if that's the desired look, then that's fine, but most glam magazines i've seen arent looking for the kabuki (sp?) look (very heavy makeup). they want models that look 'glamourous' but natural.

take a look at the lips in your image. there are highs and lows and midtones. then look at the skin in a given area. it's all the same. there are no pores, no differences, no detail (or not much). so the model looks 'pasty face'...as if she were wearing a ton of foundation.

now, i dont mind the lighting, the highs in the upper left but the pasty face is a dead give-away that this is a retouch. the trick is to make folks think there has been no retouching where there has been some or even a lot. glamor retouching is all about the illusion and enhancing without letting the audience know how the magician did his trick :)

there are a lot of threads on RP here that deal with retouching skin. i think there are a couple going now in the first forum. have a look around. you'll find a lot of opinions and techniques and help.

craig

Here is the original..

Hi lumierephoto,

I worked some on your image, the result is attached. It's far from perfect but good for illustrative purposes.

What I did was clean the freckles as much as possible using the spot healing brush, increase the brightness (a lot) and adjust the levels somewhat.

Then I made a new layer and started painting over with a very soft brush - shadows, highlights and midtones (picking the colors from the girl's face). Like you did on your image. Then lowered the layer's opacity to 30%. My guess is it made all the difference.

Hope that helps!

And one more thing: is this the photo's original size?

Good work! No this isn't the original size. It's also saved for web. Thanks for your input :)

Well, keep it simple here! when you get to these very different resuls it's important to try to keep it as natural as possible! the ying examples a nic eone! very retouched! Your example came out too white and too flat! Less is more on this picture! freckles are infact a nice thing! but that is my oopinion!



Gerry

Hey lumierephoto, I sent you a private message.